Gezicht op een vernietigde brug over de Vetrivier in Zuid-Afrika 1901

This photograph of a destroyed bridge was taken by an anonymous artist. It’s a brown, ruinous, and fragmented scene. I'm thinking about the process of destruction and what came before. I imagine the artist felt some kind of emotion when they saw this scene. Maybe shock, maybe sadness, maybe something else. What was it like standing in the rubble? What do you do when something is broken? Do you fix it? Do you leave it? That fractured space also asks us what kinds of things are worth saving, and what can be let go of. Like painting, the artist found something new, and started over, and something in that gap makes us feel alive. It reminds me of the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold, so that the damage is part of its history. What do you think?